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Praying for a Victory: Packed Supreme Court Takes Up Yet Another Christian Nationalist Cause

…crisy.) They’re not seeking a right to exercise religion in a personal way free from government interference, but to use government power to extend the reach of that religious exercise over the entire community. When it asked the Supreme Court to take the case, the Institute brazenly claimed the prayers were “a quiet prayer by himself,” a “personal prayer,” and “a silent or quiet prayer.” As the photos show, this is untrue. https://twitter.com/Bra…

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In Praise of Failure: Is Defining Religion Such a Good Idea?

…a bit and think about language, since we are at least talking about how we use, or should use, words. Fully to appreciate what I am saying, know that here in Riverside County, California, I am writing close in time and space to the shootings in San Bernardino. I have been driven to distraction and anger by the way the word “terrorism” is kicked about. For example: mass shootings by a white Christian, “crazy, unexplainable,” but, mass shootings by…

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Needle Exchange Gets Religion

…ice and without power,” said Iozzio. To do anything less than provide drug users, their co-users, sex partners, and children with the services that will reduce and/or remove the potential harms through needle exchange constitutes failure “to save human lives, to acknowledge the dignity of every human life, and to respond in solidarity to those who are marginalized by an addiction that places them and their associates at risk of life, limb, and lov…

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From Christian Temperance to D.A.R.E. — The War on Drugs Has its Roots in White Christian Nationalism

…still observing even as late as 1939. Gates was also the creator of Drug Abuse Resistance Education, better known to many Americans as D.A.R.E. The D.A.R.E. program began in Los Angeles in 1983 and placed uniformed police officers in classrooms to teach children about substance use, eventually evolving into a national program. (Remarkably little critical scholarship has been published about D.A.R.E.) Growing up in Indiana, I remember officers comi…

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Introducing ‘Draw Muhammad Day’

…uld see the hurt and pain in the eyes of another person and say it’s about free speech. Just because you have the right to do something does not mean that you have to do it. Our rights come with responsibilities. No religion should be above criticism. It is a mistake for groups like RM to threaten others. The response to speech should always be more speech. My issue here is that DMD does not address the key question raised by the South Park episod…

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A Bill Passes, Westboro Baptists Shrug

…the two key issues at stake in its signing: First Amendment rights to the free exercise of religion and to free speech: I am very pleased to be signing this bill into law. The graves of our veterans are hallowed ground. And obviously we all defend our Constitution and the First Amendment and free speech, but we also believe that when men and women die in the service of their country and are laid to rest, it should be done with the utmost honor an…

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Gay Black Church: An Interview with Bishop Yvette Flunder

…hat African people would do, because they’re cursed. We still wouldn’t get free. There’s no freedom anywhere. And that it was God’s idea—it was not white people’s ide  it was God’s idea that we be in that place. And there was a church in Welshneck, South Carolina that, when the Emancipation proclamation came and African people were freed, a group of them went to this church and wanted to become members of the church. Now of course they couldn’t si…

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Why Hobby Lobby is a Pandora’s Box: Ginsburg v. Alito

…why. This was not a First Amendment case. It was filed under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). Understanding this will require a little legal history but I promise to keep it brief. Prior to 1990 The Court ruled on First Amendment Free Exercise claims with a test known as the Sherbert Test. Constitutional rights are not absolute (think laws against human sacrifice). Essentially an infringement on Free Exercise was permitted if: 1) ther…

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DeSantis is a No-Show, the Right’s ‘Secret Sauce,’ and Final Thoughts on Pray Vote Stand

…rsonally promised him many years ago that “the court will uphold religious freedom and free exercise…but I don’t know if—but if you [faithful Americans] can uphold it in your daily life and culture.” Brownback seems to tell the crowd that weaponizing the “free exercise” clause will remain a crucial tactic for the Christian Right moving forward. “If you want to have a traditional set of values,” he tells the crowd—“if you just wanna claim life is s…

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Here’s What the Court Didn’t Decide in Masterpiece

…sons” and, on the other, “the right of all persons to exercise fundamental freedoms,” including the free exercise of religion. And therein lies a second, likely much less welcome upshot for gay rights advocates. Justice Kennedy’s opinion for the Court argued that the Civil Rights Commission unfairly treated Phillips in two ways. His first argument, that the commission permitted other bakeries to refuse service to customers who wished to commission…

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